From 3792d2c60d41c093e866726fc31d411a414d29d8 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Samuel Williams Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2024 13:52:03 +1300 Subject: [PATCH] Soft deprecate webrick and add some details as to why. --- rackup.gemspec | 4 ++-- readme.md | 36 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-- 2 files changed, 36 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) diff --git a/rackup.gemspec b/rackup.gemspec index 6d23cfe..1a1a8a7 100644 --- a/rackup.gemspec +++ b/rackup.gemspec @@ -23,8 +23,8 @@ Gem::Specification.new do |spec| } spec.add_dependency "rack", ">= 3" - spec.add_dependency "webrick", "~> 1.8" - + + spec.add_development_dependency "webrick", "~> 1.8" spec.add_development_dependency "bundler" spec.add_development_dependency "minitest", "~> 5.0" spec.add_development_dependency "minitest-global_expectations" diff --git a/readme.md b/readme.md index 7600e79..4867d17 100644 --- a/readme.md +++ b/readme.md @@ -1,13 +1,17 @@ # Rackup -`rackup` provides a command line interface for running a Rack-compatible application. +`rackup` provides a command line interface for running a Rack-compatible application. It also provides a generic interface for starting a `rack`-compatible server: `Rackup::Handler`. It is not designed for production use. [![Development Status](https://github.com/rack/rackup/workflows/Test/badge.svg)](https://github.com/rack/rackup/actions?workflow=Test) ## Installation ``` bash -$ gem install rackup +-- For Falcon +$ gem install rackup falcon + +-- For Puma +$ gem install rackup puma ``` ## Usage @@ -20,6 +24,34 @@ $ rackup Your application should now be available locally, typically `http://localhost:9292`. +## (Soft) Deprecation + +For a long time, `rackup` (the executable and implementation) was part of `rack`, and `webrick` was the default server. It made it easy to run a Rack application without having to worry about the details of the server. + +When `webrick` was removed from the Ruby standard library, `rack` started depending on `webrick` as a default server. Every web application and server would pull in `webrick` as a dependency, even if it was not used. To avoid this, the `rackup` component of `rack` was moved to this gem, which depended on `webrick`. + +However, many libraries (e.g. `rails`) still depend on `rackup` and end up pulling in `webrick` as a dependency. To avoid this, the decision was made to cut `webrick` as a dependency of `rackup`. This means that `rackup` no longer depends on `webrick`, and you need to install it separately if you want to use it. + +As a consequence of this, the value of the `rackup` gem is further diminished. In other words, why would you do this: + +``` bash +$ gem install rackup puma +$ rackup ... +``` + +when you can do this: + +``` bash +$ gem install puma +$ puma ... +``` + +In summary, the maintainers of rack recommend the following: + +- Libraries should not depend on `rackup` if possible. `rackup` as an executable made sense when webrick shipped with Ruby, so there was always a fallback. But that hasn't been true since Ruby 3.0. +- Frameworks and applications should focus on providing `config.ru` files, so that users can use the webserver program of their choice directly (e.g. puma, falcon). +- Webrick should be avoided if possible. + ## Contributing We welcome contributions to this project.